


House Calls

by Wayoming



Series: Running For The Moon [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), wholock - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Humor, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Eleventh Doctor Era, Growing Up, House Calls, Kid Fic, Ninth Doctor Era, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wayoming/pseuds/Wayoming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins when Sherlock is a little boy and a man in a blue box appears on the landing.</p><p>Written for the prompt: "The Doctor shows up at odd times in Sherlock's life"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock is four when he first sees the blue box. He doesn't know what it is, but knows that it shouldn't be in the hallway at night.   
Being a more composed child than most his first reaction on finding it, after reading its "Police Box" sign, was not to scream and yell for help.

It was to knock.

And a man wearing a leather jacket and a stern expression opened the door quickly. His face changed however into what he clearly hoped was a winning smile as his eyes fell on the child stood before him.

"Hello mate, could you do me a favour and tell me where I am?"

Sherlock scowled, and the man's smile wavered a second.  
"On the third floor of Finchback Manor, on the Holmes estate."   
The man waited, his smile becoming a puzzled frown.  
"Thanks." he said, glancing again at the hallway around him, "Not where I expected, but ah, yes. Well little chap, goodbye!"

And the man snapped the door shut sharply and Sherlock began to walk away. Until he heard the door open again.  
"Just out of interest," said the man, poking his head out of the door, "what's your name little guy?"

Sherlock looked at the man levelly. He had no reason not to tell him. His rudimentary logic told him that if he was in the house he could be trusted. Like mother, or Mycroft.

"Sherlock Holmes."  
"Well Sherlock Holmes, nice name by the way, i'll be seeing you very soon."   
He gave Sherlock a cheeky wink and promptly shut the door again.

It was a moment before the blue police box began to make the most incredible noise, and to fade in and out of sight, before disappearing completely.

Sherlock still had his mouth gaping when Mycroft came to see what the noise was. He carried a tired Sherlock back to bed, unbelieving of the crazy story his little brothers sleep-addled brain had produced.

Sherlock was asleep moments after Mycroft had gone. By morning he had slept away any memory of the big blue box.


	2. Chapter 2

"Holmes! What did you say this time?"  
"Say? You mean I have to  _say_ something to deserve a bloody nose? News to me."  
"Enough cheek boy. I saw what happened, now what did you say to Sedgwick?"

The ten year old Sherlock huffed slightly. He hated having to explain  _again_ .

"You see but you don't  _observe_ . I was merely pointing out a rather large blue object in the corner of the football field that hadn't been there moments previously."  
He stopped. As though this warranted a full explanation.  
"And?"  
Sherlock sighed again.  
" _And_ because it was not there when Sedgwick turned he thought that I was misdirecting him in order to cost him the game." He paused. "Untrue. I have little to no interest in sport."  
"Nevermind that Holmes, why would you make up some story about a 'blue object'-"  
"Blue box."  
"-about a blue box-"  
"A Police Box."  
"It doesn't matter if it was a sodding police box! Detention for telling such outright lies Holmes. Report to me at 3:30."  
"Yes Mr Harding." Sherlock said forlornly.

 

 

-  
  
The first time Sherlock remembers speaking to the man with the big blue box was barely a month after his detention. He was still sore and bitterly disappointed in the ineptitude of adults. To not believe him when the evidence was there before their eyes!

 

  
He hadn’t forgotten about the blue box, so when he saw it he ran towards it before it went again. Pumping his skinny legs he found himself chanting  _Don’t go, don’t go_ under his breath.  
Rather than knocking again he pulled the door open and walked straight inside.  
His mouth hit the floor. And he promptly backed straight out of the blue box.

 

  
It was  _bigger_ on the  _inside_ . Bigger!  
He had begun to stumble away when a voice called from behind him,  
“Hey, don’t I know you?”

 

  
The man had short, scruffy hair, and was wearing a long trench-coat, along with a pair of glasses that Sherlock was almost sure didn’t have lenses in them. He was peering at Sherlock in a familiarly interested way.  
“Sherlock? Sherlock- ah- I do remember-” The stranger broke off, using the heel of his hand to nudge his temple whilst muttering. “Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock…HOLMES! Sherlock Holmes! Yes! You- we met before! Gosh haven’t you grown!”

 

 

Sherlock scowled. The stranger was beginning to remind him of one of his hateful great aunts, always wanting to whip out a measuring tape whenever they appeared.  


 

“Though, you don’t remember, awfully long time ago- for both of us- I didn’t even look like, well, me.”

  


 

He paused a moment, taking in the sight of the dark-haired gangly boy in front of him. Shins bruised, a definite shoe print, the dark circles of lack of sleep, and a mistrustful air.   
He then remembered that he hadn’t introduced himself.  


 

“I’m The Doctor, by the way, we have met. On your estate.”  
Sherlock was yet to speak, but he took a deep breath and fully intended to question the stranger when he realised that he could hear Sedgwick’s rough tones shouting from around the corner.   
It had become the boys favourite game to tease Sherlock about the blue box, and to knock the stuffing out of him when they could catch him.  
Seeing the fear in the young boys eyes The Doctor stepped aside and pushed open the door to the blue box.

  


  
“Quick, inside.”    
Sherlock hedged a glance at him,   
“Trust me.”

  


  


And for some reason, Sherlock did.


	3. Chapter 3

It is eight years later when Sherlock sees the Doctor again. Eight years and 4 psychoanalysts later. Two of whom he made cry. They had all considered the dark haired boy with a mixture of cynicism and apprehension. They wouldn't believe him, but couldn't understand him.

It had come to the point in Sherlock's life where he was preparing to leave home. To go to university. For the first time he would be free, completely in control of his life. Free from advice from Mycroft, and Mother's fussing, and Father's stern looks. Independence.

He was terrified. 

It was his last night before moving out. His childhood bedroom stripped of his essentials felt cold and sterile,  things he didn't intend to take with him having been packed away as well as his luggage. All of it stood around his familiar bed in boxes. 

He was a ball of gangly, panicking limbs when he heard the noise. The same noise the blue box, the TARDIS, had made when The Doctor had saved him from Sedgwick and his gang all those years ago. The unmistakable whir of the machine had haunted Sherlock's dreams, both sleeping and waking for eight years.

Sherlock stalked out of bed, remembering the words The Doctor had said as he'd dropped him back into the safety of his bedroom, having been in school mere moments beforehand.   
_"I'll be back Sherlock. I'm not sure when, or even what I'll look like, but I'll be back."_

And there it was. The TARDIS, in all it's archaic glory. Sat quietly in the garden, for all the world looking as if the gardener had gone a little insane.

He didn't run. Didn't rush to go to it, to The Doctor. All those years without him turning up had taught him that when he did, he would wait. Because The Doctor knew when Sherlock needed him. And that was now. 

He padded barefoot across the dewy grass, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling of the spongy soil beneath. The crisp cool quality of the air calmed him. He felt an overwhelming calm. Stood looking at the blue box in the middle of a cool summer night. It felt right. If he had his way it would be the last time in a while Sherlock's feet would be on terra firma. 

He merely stood and looked at the TARDIS. And the door opened. Out stepped The Doctor. He hadn't even changed clothes since the last time Sherlock has seen him. He looked at Sherlock pensively. 

"You came back." Sherlock began.   
"I said I would." The Doctor looked him up and down before continuing, "I never get used to people aging around me."   
Sherlock grinned at the sentiment, and at the grumpy look on The Doctor's face. It was when his expression smoothed out and he fixed Sherlock in his gaze that Sherlock could see how old The Doctor truly was. Old and tired. 

"So what's new?" The Doctor said gamely, not wholly masking his sadness.   
Sherlock shrugged, hands in pockets and eyes wandering to glance behind The Doctor to the interior beyond hungrily, before fixing him with a stare.   
"I want to come with you."   
The Doctor's eyebrows shot up in questioning, and Sherlock cut across him before he could form words.   
"You've forgotten what we humans go through Doctor. You turn up here after eight years, eight years for me not you, in the same clothes no less. And you forget that we continue our lives when you're not there, that we live when you're not there. It's been seconds for you, and yes I've aged. I've grown up and I've decided I want the adventure. I want to come with you and see the universe."   
He took a breath, The Doctor said nothing.    
"I don't want to stay here. They don't understand. And I don't think they ever will." He paused, and looked at the grass around his feet   
"I want to come with you."

Silence.

"No."   
Sherlock's head shot up. He had thought it through, practiced the speech, known every point to hit to get what he wanted- and had failed.

"No?"   
"No Sherlock. I can't risk taking you with me. I've had enough of-" The Doctor cut off, he couldn't say the words. Not to a teenager.   
_I've had enough of people dying._   
"You're too young-"   
"I'm eighteen-"   
"And about to leave home for the first time." The Doctor concluded. Sherlock said nothing. He should have known that The Doctor would sense his fear. "It's something you need to do, Sherlock."

Sherlock nodded solemnly. And began to turn back into the house when a thought struck him.

"If you're not here to take me away, why are you here?"

The Doctor smiled and offered Sherlock a handshake.

"To wish you luck."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's anxiety at leaving home to go to university had long passed, and now he was in his final year.

Sherlock didn't have friends. That's just the way he worked. All the people he came into contact with seemed to understand this. All except one. 

John. The bane of his existence, and irritatingly clever. John Smith. 

Even the banality of his name irked Sherlock. It was as if his parents had looked at the ball of flesh and soft bone and nerve endings and cells and thought "Why bother?"   
John Smith would never tell Sherlock that when the time came he wouldn't think John such a boring name after all. But that would be telling.

It had started at the third lecture of the new year. Sherlock had lived through yet another horrendous Christmas dinner. The comments from Mycroft about his deliberate isolation had begun to make him itch in a way that would only end with something quite dangerously toxic finding its way into his brothers evening tea; the failure to do so was a testament to his self-control. It was these comments that made him suspect of John Smith's motive the moment he chose the empty seat beside Sherlock in that lecture. 

"Is this seat taken?" The unbearably cheerful voice said, breaking into the beginning of Sherlock's lecture process. He didn't have a notebook in front of him, or a dictaphone, no way to take notes other than his method. To loose it now would be disastrous.  
"Please shut up. If you're going to sit down sit down but stop talking."

The stranger obliged, not offended, his grin appeared to widen in fact. He did shut up. Though that didn't make him any less distracting. Sherlock could practically _feel_  him vibrate with excitement, and the strangers eye were rarely on the professor. He seemed far more interested in Sherlock than taking notes.   
Sherlock refused to let it distract him and the lecture passed in relative normality. 

Sherlock already knew that the stranger from the lecture had followed him. He had barely left the theatre when an excited voice was scratching at his eardrums.   
"So that works then, your committing it to memory?"   
"Yes."   
The stranger hummed in an impressed manner, giving Sherlock a sideways glance and falling into step with him easily. 

Sherlock stopped suddenly, allowing the stranger to walk a couple of paces before turning on his heel to face him.  
"Is there a problem?" The stranger returned Sherlock's gaze with an interested air. _Far too interested to be benign._  
"How much did he offer you?" Sherlock said levelly, deep voice flat and uninterested, "You shouldn't listen to a word he says you know, he'd just as soon kill you where you stand as-"  
"Who? Mycroft? No, no no, "The stranger shook his head "he's nothing to do with this, though I should drop in on him when I go." He wiggled his thin eyebrows at Sherlock and his mild expression "I've got to talk to him about a few things. You're not very talkative, he said that you'd be like that. He also said you wouldn't like me, he knows you awfully well doesn't he? He _also_ said you'd have deduced me by now." He paused, "I guess he can't be right about everything!" 

Sherlock allowed his face to become somewhat confused. Would Mycroft have stooped so low as to not only pay someone to spy on him, but also someone so... strange?   
"Mycroft is hardly right about anything. Spend enough time with him and you not only realise his fallibility but also his banality."  
"It wasn't Mycroft, Sherlock." 

Sherlock gave a level gaze at the stranger. And for once in his life he was unnerved by the eyes that stared back at him. Old, and dangerous, set in the young face.

He watched as the stranger smiled warmly, sticking out his hand.  
"John Smith." He offered. "And honestly, I'm not a spy for Mycroft. I'm... I'm here for a friend of yours."  
Sherlock took the warm hand, his face still schooled into aloof blankness.  
"I don't have friends."

Far from being offended however, Smith let out a shout, and rather loud, laugh.  
"That's what you think."

~

It became somewhat of a weekly ritual. Sherlock would sit his lecture. Smith would turn up a few minutes later, sit next to him without speaking, and watch him commit the lecture to memory. They'd walk along the long path from Sherlock's lecture hall to the split in the path, where they would part ways for another week.

John Smith, though relentlessly cheerful and seemingly unfazed by Sherlock's focused attention, began to irritate Sherlock less and less. To the point where he found himself forgetting to keep up his disdainful air around him. He slowly began to enjoy the seeming admiration that John Smith seemed to foster for him, and Smith's willingness to be a soundboard for Sherlock's thoughts. 

It was only after a couple more weeks of seeing Smith at his lectures that Sherlock finally hit upon a thought that was so mind-blowingly simple that he could not believe he hadn't considered it before. 

He didn't know anything about John Smith. He had his name, and...that's it. He didn't know whether he lived on campus, or whether he really was working for Mycroft. And of all the things he still didn't know who this _friend_  he apparently had was supposed to be. 

Sherlock hated being bested. He decided that he would confront Smith about this the next time he saw him, and found himself geared up and _looking_  for John Smith the next week as students continued to file into the lecture hall.

John Smith didn't turn up. He didn't turn up the next week either.

Sherlock turned detective in order to make some enquiries. He found nothing, there was no John Smith on his, or any other course at the uni, no one else had even _heard_ of him. It was though he had just dropped right out of the sky.   
And now he was gone.

Another few weeks passed. Sherlock continued with his studies, fully focussed on the work before him, shunning the attentions of others. He didn't want _people_. People were messy, they talked to much and stupidly, they were wrapped up in the world of this latest band or that latest trend or who was sleeping with who. Sherlock had tried getting on with them, but ultimately he and _people_  avoided each other.   
But he still remembered John Smith and the shine in his eyes. 

He had very nearly almost given up on seeing Smith again when he spied him, walking into the same lecture hall. Smith caught his eye and grinned, waving both arms at Sherlock and making him groan slightly with embarrassment. 

Smith strolled casually up to the seat next to Sherlock, and without uttering a word sat down. 

The lecture went as expected and as they left Sherlock attempted to brush Smith off.  
"Woah hey, Sherlock what-"  
Sherlock rounded on John Smith.  
"Six weeks. You were gone six weeks. You don't take notes at lectures. Your name isn't anywhere on the University database, there isn't a single student who can lay claim to having lived with you, worked with you or even having seen you the a bar.  Enough is enough. Who are you?"

John Smith's mouth pursed into a thin line, and he seemed at once chastened and delighted. The same spark in his eyes that he got when listening to Sherlock expound his latest theory had found its way back now.   
"Well. That took you long enough!" He grinned. "I told you, I was here for a friend of yours."   
Sherlock's brows knitted. Smith wasn't going to give him an easy answer clearly.  
"I-"  
"'Don't have friends' I know, I know, boring things, other people, eh Sherlock? But friends is different to a friend."

Sherlock could feel a headache coming on, and was glad when Smith was interrupted by a sandy-haired man, rather red-faced and looking a little grumpy, appeared at Sherlock's shoulder and shoved Smith's arm in a chiding manner.  
"You! I have been running 'round this city for three _hours_  looking for you! You can't just do that! And why are you at the u-"  
He had turned to face Sherlock, as though to apologise on Smith's behalf, on seeing his face however the sandy-haired stranger's face had gone slack and he had been struck dumb. His eyes widened. His gaze roamed around Sherlock's face, the intense gaze something that Sherlock couldn't bring himself to look away from. He looked at Sherlock as though he fully expected him to disappear. 

"John, this is Sherlock." Said Smith quietly. Sherlock couldn't draw his eyes away from the older man. He was stocky and unassuming, his face was open and kind and Sherlock felt a pang of something unfamiliar in his stomach. He knew this man, but he didn't know him.   
"Sherlock, this is John Watson."

Sherlock proffered his hand, and was surprised by the surety of the man's handshake.   
"Pleased to meet you...John."   
John still hadn't continued talking and John Smith had started to dart anxious looks between the two of them. He began to dance nervously on the balls of his feet before speaking directly to John Watson.  
"John, we have to go. I said no for a reason but now-"

John Watson tore his gaze away from Sherlock, only then noticing that they hadn't broken their shake, in order to glare at Smith.   
"You said-"  
"I didn't." Smith said airily, holding his hands aloft in surrender. "I promise. And now we really have to go."  
"Right. Fine. Right."   
Watson turned his gazed back to Sherlock.  
"It was good to see you, Sherlock." He said, swallowing hard after saying his name, before turning on his heel and beginning to walk stiffly back the way he came. 

Sherlock watched him walk away. The odd pang felt strangely like guilt, but he couldn't put his finger on what he had done to John Watson to feel guilty about. He turned back to John Smith.  
"So, Smith and Watson. Inventive."  
"Inventive?"  
"Well. John is clearly his name, but it most certainly is not yours."  
Smith laughed heartily, gripping Sherlock firmly by the shoulders.   
"I have missed you Sherlock! But, there's always the next time!" He gave Sherlock a gentle shake, before walking off after John Watson. 

There was only one thing Sherlock wanted to ask John Smith now.  
"Smith?"  
He turned to face Sherlock.  
"Who was he?"  
Smith smiled and nodded, knowing full well who Sherlock meant.  
"That was the friend I was keeping an eye on you for."   
Smith smiled softly, a hint of sadness in his eyes. 

This time Sherlock let him walk away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has hit rock bottom, and has stopped caring.

His ribcage seemed set to crack under the pressure of his heartbeat. He could feel his breathing becoming ragged, and could hear the laborious breaths of the man beside him slicing through the din like a knife. The pain, the pressure, the noise. It all dissolved in the face of this new blinding light running through his veins. Unprecedented and unequalled; finally Sherlock had found something to tame the rapid forest-fire in his brain. It was bliss.

He welcomed the cold invasion under his skin, tearing him open and baring his insides for scrutiny and display. The foreign entity colonised, sweeping his body and taking it for his own. It made him its home, and he learned their language; the pleasant buzz and all consuming clarity. Nothing before had been so all-consuming, so much like drowning himself in quiet. The emissary of the entity, the quiet, the drug, was beautiful. Victor had rakish hair, and piercing green eyes. In his haze he sometimes imagined Victor dressed in brocade, with flowing hair like a long-dead Venetian. When he tried to say this out loud he reached the part about Victor being dead, and would freeze, he would fix him with a steady gaze and refuse to speak for days. He was learning the invaders language, and its sweet music.

 

-

 

They continued much like this, with Victor bringing new invasions into his blood, each with its own language and music, making his very body sing with chemicals both natural and immoral, for what felt like years. Time became a fluid entity, slipping steadily through Sherlock’s cupped hands. Several times he tried to reason with Victor, tried to get him to leave and _“take it with you. It rots my brain, makes me weak. Get out! Get OUT!”_

Sherlock would brood, arms wrapped around his frail frame, thoughts slowly but surely beginning to catch up with him. To race and scream and tumble over themselves. He would call Victor back, hours or days after the words had already been said. He would beg him. And sometimes, just to serve him right, Victor would return. And they would start again.

 

-

 

_“...is the last time...I swear to God Sherlock...die because of your own...smack you three ways from...”_ The voice seemed familiar, and if it hadn’t sounded so angry, it could have been described as fond. Familiar in a way that reminded him of being young and small and vulnerable and _finding a blue box and knocking on the door_. He was being moved, buffeted and shoved. Fingers pinched and dragged against his skin, his bones felt soft and stretched. Lifting. He was being lifted away. Before...nothing. Finally, he slept.

 

-

 

“ _I’d wake up...can’t keep on...Sherlock?...Sherlock!..._ Sherlock!”

Sherlock opened his eyes, vision clearing as faces above him swam into view. One he knew, he could name...if only he could make his tongue cooperate. The world seemed to even out a little, his body feeling less like it was floating. More like it had crashed back to Earth, burying itself underground. He felt as though his brain was clawing its way out of the cold, clammy earth. But the voices were becoming clearer. _Voices._ There was more than one. And they were discussing him. Their tones hushed and worried.

 

“I’m afraid I can’t allow-“

“Detective, I can assure you he would be in the best care. I am more than qualified-“

“You call yourself his doctor? A doctor of what? You haven’t been here the last _three times_ this has happened-“

“I know, there was a problem with timing-“

“Timing!” Lestrade hissed, sounding furious.

 

Sherlock groaned in discontent, his throat feeling as though he hadn’t spoken for an age. The voices stopped. He smiled in a vague sort of way, once again centre of his own little world.

“Fine,” Detective Lestrade said, waving a hand towards the strung out junkie on his sofa, “Take him...doctor?” He narrowed his eyes at the gangly man, with thick glasses and messy hair. He wasn’t entirely certain about his qualifications, but he’d had ID with him. Who was Lestrade to argue?

“Just ‘The Doctor’,” The Doctor grinned, leaning over Sherlock’s limp body for a few moments before stretching and hauling him up underneath the elbows, “Uh, Detective?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Could you help me get him downstairs into the car?”

 

\--

 

The next morning Sherlock was curled up on his own sofa, the debris of the previous night all too evident among the mess that constituted his floor. His nose crinkled delicately at the sight of it all. And finally, after all that had happened, it sickened him.

“You came back,” Sherlock murmured, eyes riveted to a particular scrap of paper by The Doctor’s foot, “You came back. But not to take me with you.” His gaze burned into The Doctor’s cheek, still refusing to look him in the eye. It looked as though The Doctor might speak. He did not.   
“You could have let me die,” Sherlock’s voice was calm and even, cold, “Why didn’t you?”

The Doctor rubbed a hand through his hair, smiling tightly, before turning his head ever so slightly.

“It was not your time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this is a little different to the other chapters and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Let me know your thoughts!


End file.
